A Homer Republican state representative declared victory on Friday after successfully pressuring the local newspaper to revise a story about a vigil honoring Charlie Kirk.
Rep. Sarah Vance, who helped organize the vigil, took issue with the newspaper’s description of Kirk’s views.
Vance highlighted the story’s second paragraph, which identified Kirk as a “far-right activist” and an icon among Christian nationalists. It described some of his views as “racist and controversial” and said Kirk perpetuated “conspiracy theories.” The story, by Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac, didn’t include concrete examples, but did link to an 1,100 word article in the New York Times with many.
“This piece is not journalism, but rather it is hate-baiting at its worst,” Vance said in a letter to the newspaper’s owners, Carpenter Media Group, on her Alaska State Legislature letterhead. She accused the paper of bias.
“I urge you to take immediate corrective action,” she wrote.
The newspaper’s owners later removed, edited and reposted the story, a move that Vance welcomed in a post on social media. But a former editor of the newspaper said Vance took it “a step too far for an elected representative.”
“That's government intimidation of a free press, and, you know, the First Amendment says the government shall not do that,” said Michael Armstrong who worked for the paper for more than two decades. “It's right there up front, and I think she's crossed that line.”
Vance and Carpenter Media executives did not respond to interview requests for this story.
Armstrong said it’s fair game for government officials, or anyone else, to criticize a news outlet’s coverage. But he said a passage from Vance’s letter saying she was “aware of a growing movement to boycott Homer News advertising” crossed the line into intimidation.
“If you want to have a civil dialogue with the newspaper, with the editors, with the publishers, that's appropriate,” he said.
At the Homer vigil, a week after Kirk was assassinated in Utah, Vance had extolled the value of the type of open debate Kirk and his group, Turning Point USA, were famous for.
“Remember that the people who were spreading hate and vitriol are our neighbors,” she said in a short speech at the vigil. “We need to do like Charlie and engage with them in open dialogue that's respectful, that leads them to the truth.”
In an interview, Pleznac defended her work, saying her coverage of the vigil was part of a larger effort to ensure Homer conservatives saw themselves reflected in the newspaper’s coverage.
“I thought it was important to document them honoring Charlie Kirk's legacy,” she said. “I went, I took photos, and I took video, and I thought that that was something that would honestly make them happy.”
Pleznac said she wrote the description Vance objected to after reviewing other news coverage of Kirk’s assassination in an effort to provide context backed by evidence.
“Vance said I should have published the original article as an opinion piece because of the language I used to report the opinions that Kirk regularly, proudly espoused,” Pleznac said. “My reporting of those opinions is not a reflection of my bias but rather a reflection of my research.”
Armstrong said the episode echoes another recent Kirk-related controversy — ABC’s decision to temporarily take Jimmy Kimmel off the air following threats from the chair of the Federal Communications Commission after Kimmel made comments about Kirk’s assassination
It comes alongside a broader Trump administration crackdown on media critical of the president and his allies, the New York Times reported. President Donald Trump has sued the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and CBS over news stories, and has sought to limit the Associated Press’s access to the White House over its decision not to abide by Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
“I think that (has) set a tone, obviously, for his administration, but also for a lot of other conservative Republicans,” Armstrong said. “It's making it harder for the press to do their job.”
Pleznac, too, said Vance’s pressure campaign amounts to state censorship.
“It is the antithesis of what I believe ethical journalism stands for,” she said.
Armstrong said Vance should be held accountable, and that government officials more broadly should respect the role that reporters play in American democracy.
“I don't think newspapers should be intimidated by their government. I think the government should be intimidated by the newspapers,” he said.
If government officials don’t like what they see in the newspaper, Armstrong said, the right approach isn’t intimidation — it’s open dialogue.
KBBI’s Simon Lopez in Homer contributed reporting to this story.
